Samsung Gear 2 smartwatches announced. Yes, plural

Gallery: Samsung Gear 2 smartwatches announced. Yes, plural

Despite mixed reviews for its first smartwatch, Samsung will launch not one, but two new Gear devices. (Samsung has since confirmed it has dropped the "Galaxy" name from this product.)

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The Gear 2, like its predecessor, acts as a companion device to Samsung phones and tablets -- calls can be taken via the wrist Power Ranger-style, and the screen acts as a window through which to view texts, emails and other messages.

It still has a two-megapixel camera for taking photos and 720p HD video, but the camera is now built into the main chassis of the device rather than its now-interchangeable strap. The colour touchscreen remains unchanged at 1.6 inches with a 320x320-pixel resolution.

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A Gear 2 Neo will also be released with near-identical features, but lacks the camera functionality. This being stripped away makes the Neo a slimmer, lighter smartwatch that weighs 55g to the Gear 2's heavier 68g.

New features, then: notably it's largely about health. Both Gear 2 devices include heart rate sensors and pedometers for use with or without a smartphone paired thanks to bundled apps. Other apps, including a sleep monitoring tool, can be downloaded through the watch's app store.

The interface of the Gear 2 looks similar to the previous model's, with the exception that the device is now based on Samsung's own Tizen operating system rather than Android. New features that come with this change includes a built-in music player, meaning songs can be loaded onto the watch directly and played through Bluetooth-connected headphones or speakers -- no phone required.

A new WatchON Remote app, paired with the Gear 2's infra red sensor, allows the watch to interact with TVs. Read: change channels. It's amazing how far we've come since the Casio and Zeon digital watches that graced the pages of Argos in the 1990s, which included IR blasters for controlling TVs.

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Both models will go on sale in the UK in April and, probably worth mentioning, both also tell the time, too.

The Gear 2 joins an ever-increasing number of smartwatches hitting the market. At CES a new version of the popular Pebble watch was released to join those on show from Sony and Qualcomm amongst others. Apple is hotly tipped to have an entry in this market during 2014 alongside Microsoft.

Pre-2013, smartwatches were standalone devices that rarely saw any success. In 2009 LG released a model called the GD910, referred to at the time as a "watch phone". In the UK it cost £1,000, included 3G connectivity and demanded a contract on UK network Orange.